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conversion ’

It’s been an interesting first 5 months in Brevard County Florida. Arguably we have one of the worst Real Estate markets in the country. Our prices came down from $275k average at our peak in 2005 to $117k average currently. The good news is that we seemed to have leveled for about a year and days on the market are averaging 90-120 days for most homes with 30-60 days for homes priced correctly.

Many consumers have been burned by a short sale or two and have decided to stay away from them. We like that! We also been able to increase our home sales price to $144k this year by better understanding our buyers and our leads.

Like I said, it’s been an interesting first 5 months. We are on track to beat our numbers from last year by at least 20% maybe more. We are closing 30-46 homes per month which is up from our average last year of 28 closings. It’s very exciting.

So what can I attribute our continued growth each year? Two things, Buyerlink and lead conversion.

BuyerLink is a no-brainer since I capture twice as many leads at half the cost of what I was paying with Google and Yahoo!. Once you do capture the lead, you have to be able to do something with it. The key to lead conversion is systems. Because BuyerLink produces so many leads, you need to be sure to have a solid conversion system including listings, drip campaigns and most importantly phone call follow up.

If you don’t have a system in place, not only do you not get the return you are looking to get, you can waste a ton of money!

I could spend hours going over most of this stuff, but the reality is, converting leads is just not that hard. Half of it is attitude. Continue reading this post

HomeGain did an awesome job this past Monday with their full day of training for 100 customers (HomeGain Nation 2010). If you were lucky enough to be there, you enjoyed over 8 hours of great information on a variety of subjects, but most of all, on how to use the HomeGain products to best increase your business.

I had the privilege of speaking about the BuyerLink product. Well actually, my talk was more about how to capture a lead and how to create the leads you capture into customers for life.

I covered Landing Pages and how to create the best landing page to capture the most leads. I discussed our 100MPH marketing system which helps you turn leads into customers. I also talked about different aspects of creating traffic. And what I believe to be most important, we had a great conversation with everyone about making phone calls, how important they are and what to talk about during your first phone calls.

When I got home I realized, based on some emails I received and based on the conversations I had with so many after I spoke, that many of you might have questions after you went home and decided to try to implement some of what we discussed. After all, it was a lot of information in a very short period of time.

If you were not at the HomeGain event, this would be a good opportunity to learn some great tips on how to accomplish the above categories. After all, Lead Capture and Conversion are the most important aspects of real estate Internet marketing.

I look forward to helping you take your Internet program to the next level!

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions – at least not in the traditional sense that many of us think of. Instead, I find it more productive to set goals. Some are general, some specific. For example, it wouldn’t be wise to set a resolution to get more closings in 2009. That’s not going to actually help me achieve more closings that I actually seek.

Instead, I look back to see what I might have done wrong in the past and resolve to improve. For me, this would be that I don’t think that I seized on many of the opportunities to turn leads into clients and clients into closings. Considering the real estate climate last year and the likelihood that it will continue well in to 2009 or longer, I consider making the most out of each and every opportunity the highest priority for 2009.

In other words, conversion.

For many, 2008 was a transitional year while others laid the foundation for a successful career for years to come. Wherever you may be in your career, it’s time to put 2008 behind us and be prepared to seize all opportunities that present themselves to us in the upcoming year. To do this successfully, we need to be prepared. Continue reading this post

It goes without saying that anyone in sales should track their leads: Where they’re coming from, how much they cost, and how many close.

Why is this so important?

If you’re spending $500/month on a lead source, and you only close one deal per year from that source, then you paid $6,000 to close one deal. If the lead source provided you a $1MM closing, then it was definitely worth it. If, however, the closing was a $250k home, then your money is probably better spent elsewhere.

While detailed lead tracking is always a great idea, it can become a bit complicated, unless you have sophisticated software to help you with the process. However, tracking return on investment is relatively easy, and is a great place to start tracking leads, if you haven’t already.

If you’re a real estate broker, manage a team of agents or a solo agent, the first step is to itemize your lead sources.

Common sources include referrals, sign calls, ad calls, purchased leads, and web leads. It’s a very good idea to be as detailed as possible when categorizing lead sources. If you purchase leads from multiple sources, you obviously want to know how much each source produces.

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